The Art of Effective Communication

The Art of Effective Communication

            Communication is still considered a high value item that any project manager must be able to use to be effective.  Most projects will live or die due to the success of communication.  Managers are will either be promoted or fired depending on how effective they are with this specialized tool.  A major part of any PM duties is to keep senior leadership with status of the project (Portny, 2008).  Even a bigger part is that communication is being used in so many different ways, PM will need to stay abreast with all the diverse media in order to communication with his team and management.  Watching, listening and reading “The Art of Effective Communication” gave a glimpse of some of the different ways to correspond with your co-workers.  Each media (email, voicemail, & Face to Face) gave me a prospective on each tool and how it can be more effective.

            Email is probably the most use form of communication in the world.  In the 20 years I have put in the Air Force, it’s amazing how much a modest task as giving a simple order has gone from face to face to reading your email.  Military leadership has encourage the folks from the old generation to embrace the new form as communication as it has allow us multitask more and get more accomplished at a short time (PDG, 2009).  They key was to embrace but not forget how human interaction is important.  As project managers, we must take into consideration the subject of the email and whether it can give the reader clear and concise instructions on what the goal of the email is.  This falls more into the formal communication where the main purpose of the message is to get the readers attention on the task at hand and what is needed from them and timeframe of when this task needs to be completed (Portny, 2008). 

           

            Voicemail is the one media most people hate to use.  Primarily due to its informal nature and the difficulty of getting the proper message across.  This tool is used just to get the listener a small message of what is needed and majority of the time, the person giving the message will ask for some confirmation of this message.  Verification is the most important detail as it’s the only way the reader will know if the listener got and understand the message.

           

            Face-to-Face is the old school way to get your message across.  This tool is the best tool for any PM who wants to ensure their message, instructions and suspense’s are given and understood.  During the program, “The Art of Effective Communication”, Face-to-Face was the only media where the message was clearly given and understood from the reader how important these tasks were.  One would only hope that any PM would primarily use this media as it will not only give validation of the message being delivered but also be able to read your employees as it will allow the PM to interact and clear any misconceptions they might have.  The Art of Effective Communication has given us a quick guideline on all the different tools used in communication and maybe just give use an understanding how to use each one effectively. 

Hermes Sanchez

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project  management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Professional Development Guide(PDG). (2009). In Professional Development Guide (AFP 36-2241), Washington            DC:

Quality Air Force Post-mortem

Quality Air Force Post-mortem

                My time in the Air Force has taught me that changes comes quite often.    During my early years, I was put in charge of an project that dealt with Air Force Quality process.  This was the new assessment for units that help units to evaluate their process and improve on it.  It was called Quality Air Force 2000.  Being an eager Non-Commission Officer, I was eager to prove my abilities and took the project head on and attempted to bring our squadron to Quality Air Force. 

My main plan was to follow certain guidelines given by HQs which was teach the knowledge, give scenario exercises and validation of new assessment being used.  HQs has sent out all the materials to follow thru with the project at hand.  Lesson plans, Scenario exercise, class materials, and validation exercises.  We were even given training on how to instruct and evaluate the new system.  The training went well and majority of the all project managers where excited to institute this new assessment tool.  We were ready to get started and I felt this project was going to be a big success.

Once my classes got started, I notice that the different type of culture compared to the training I had.  The atmosphere in my training session was needed during my instruction times with my squadron.  This is an area that needed to be notice as learning was stand still.  A Non-Commission Officer in the AF are taught to understand their folks and be able to comprehend their values in life to be able to better associate yourself with them (PDG, 2009).  This ideal should’ve have lead me to re evaluated certain aspects of this project and make it tailored more to the individuals in my squadron.   Follow-Through is another responsibility that helps you work with others to institutionalize achieved changes (Beach, 2006).  This new system had only valued certain members in this project and they lost their focus on the teaching at hand (Portny, 2008).  Training became difficult and seem to lose its steam after the third and final day of the instruction.

                Finally,  the units in the squadron seem to down play the Quality Air Force 2000 as only 3 of the 15 units instituted the assessment tool.   Only one of the three units who did use the system found any value in improving their process.   The Air Force across the board did not think the Quality Air Force 2000 project go as well as they plan.  Soon after, they develop at least two more different assessment systems .  But in the end  the Air Force now uses a hybrid method of the old Quality Air Force 2000 system to assess unit process.  In retrospect, the tools HQs gave us was adequate tools for the new process.  Currently The value should have been place more on units members.  Getting the members involve directly with the process could’ve made this project a lot more successful and save the Air Force a lot of money of developing two more different systems.   I was too young in my managerial career to be more patient with the members and find how this system could’ve have impact them more in a personal level.

Hermes Sanchez, TSgt, USAF

Portny, S. E., Mantel, S. J., Meredith, J. R., Shafer, S. M., Sutton, M. M., & Kramer, B. E. (2008). Project management: Planning, scheduling, and controlling projects. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, Inc.

Beach, L. R. (2006). Leadership and the Art of Change. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc.

Professional Development Guide (PDG). (2009). In Professional Development Guide (AFP 36-2241), Washington DC: